More area cabs moving to credit cards

WASHINGTON – More cabs in the Washington area will be accepting credit cards soon.

The Alexandria City Council this week moved to require all cabs in the city to accept credit cards by September, with fares remaining the same.

And this weekend, the first D.C. cabs with credit-card readers are on the road. With them comes a new fare structure.

The DC Taxicab Commission will require all cabs to accept credit cards by September. As each cab is outfitted with the new setup, it will start charging the new fares, which add an extra 50 cents to each trip, plus a one-dollar surcharge on top of the normal fare for groups of 2-4 passengers. The new fares apply to both cash and credit transactions. Many other fees are being eliminated.

During the transition period, there is no way to know from afar whether a cab has the new equipment, and is charging more than another cab which has not yet made the transition.